


Detach From Feeling Alive

by callmechristinae



Series: Livejournal Migration [30]
Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmechristinae/pseuds/callmechristinae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark can feel it happening, but it’s different this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detach From Feeling Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allfireburns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfireburns/gifts).



> This was a Christmas gift to allfireburns on livejournal many moons ago when I was still 45ygb. We haven't talked in years, but this migration led to me seeing all our old convos. I hope you're doing great :)

Mark can feel it happening. It’s the slight numbing feeling that usually comes when he’s behind the camera, watching a stranger’s life fall apart. He usually watches a person he’s never met show some gut-wrenching emotion as they see their hopes and dreams being wrenched from their soul and into oblivion. This time it’s different. He isn’t hiding behind his camera, and it isn’t a stranger. It’s his best friend.  
  
And the sad thing is that he thinks his friend doesn’t even realize it.  
  
He watches as his friend slips into his suit jacket, straightening out his sleeves to show off the cufflinks he had found cheap at some second hand store he’d probably never go to again. It was beneath him now.  
  
He watches the self-satisfied grin his friend flashes to his mirror double, the joking wink that normally made Mark giggle causing not even the slightest fluctuation of emotion. It’s not the mocking gesture it used to be. It’s become the motion that it used to be imitating so seamlessly no one’s even noticed.  
  
Except for Mark that is.  
  
Mark pulls one knee up to his chest, trying to find a comfortable position as he sits on the hard wooden stool next to the bathtub. He doesn’t know why he’s here, why he’s been asked to witness this spectacle. He was perfectly content on his mattress working on scripts that took place in a world where this wasn’t happening.  
  
He looks out the door, past his preening best friend. He sees Roger, sitting by the window and watching life pass him by. The rocker’s eyes catch his briefly as they pass over the room before returning to his fogged up view of the world. Apparently Mark’s not the only one feeling numb these days.  
  
Mark turns back to the man in front of him. This man in the slightly worn tan slacks and the new dark blue suit jacket. This man who’s gently drying his freshly washed face. This man that used to stay up late with Mark, hunched over books in their dorm room as they tried to pass their G.E. courses.  
  
Looking back, Mark’s not sure why they worried so much when they usually passed with ease. Maybe they just wanted the excuse to sit close together on Mark’s bed and talk into the wee hours of the morning. He could remember this one time freshman year, he thinks it was early December cause he remembers it was freezing. Mark had been sitting on his bed, wrapped in that ugly afghan Benny’s grandmother had sent for them. Benny had been at his desk, putting the finishing touches on his essay about the influence of some dead guy on modern architecture. For once people weren’t constantly passing by in the hallway, with everyone actually studying and working. Mark was beginning to think it was time for a break. If he had to read any more of Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” his in class essay was just going to turn into an anti-feminist rant.  
  
He didn’t clearly remember the act of throwing the article across the room, but he did remember the way Benny jumped up and looked at him. Nothing happened after that. It wasn’t some life-altering event and Benny didn’t give him some piece of advice that would guide him through the rest of his life. But it was the first time Benny gave him “the look.” Not just that “you’re my roommate and I want to know you’re okay so you won’t kill me with an ax in my sleep” look that it used to be. It actually showed concern. It was the “you’re you and I want to know you’re okay because I care about you” look. Mark’s really starting to miss that look.  
  
Mark sighs, glancing down at his watch before he remembers it’s been broken for weeks. This business man in front of him has offered to get it fixed, but for some reason he always refuses. Maybe it’s pride. Or, maybe Mark just doesn’t want to acknowledge that this person is now a man who takes a watch to a jewelry store to get it fixed instead of trying to fix it himself with a toothpick and an earring stud.  
  
It was while they were studying for their last round of finals at Brown. Benny had returned to the dorm room to find Mark in a panic, speed walking back and forth across the small room. He had gently grabbed the young man from Scarsdale by the shoulders, guiding him to sit on his hard mattress. After several attempts, Benny was able to pry the old watch out of Mark’s fist and got to work on it at his desk. Mark watched silently as Benny took out his earring and pulled a toothpick out from his desk drawer. Benny had fiddled with the knobs and switches for over an hour, trying to figure out what was wrong with the old watch that had never really run on time in the first place. He forgot about it when Mark began to laugh hysterically, decided instead to figure out how his roommate worked instead.  
  
Mark misses that earring.  
  
He turns back to the sink, looking at the ring glinting softly in the hazy morning light. He remembers picking that up at one of those vendors that used to set up shop outside the school cafeteria. That was back when his parents sent him money instead of stupid answering machines and hot plates they thought he needed. His roommate had picked it up off his desk, teasingly asking if it was for him. Mark had rolled his eyes, slinging back some joke about the cheap band representing his everlasting love. It was just supposed to be a joke.  
  
But jokes don’t leave tan lines on someone’s ring finger.  
  
It wasn’t even a nice ring. It was some kind of soft metal, and it wasn’t even really shaped into a circle. It had bent to fit around the finger it had been on for so long, forming some sort of lopsided oval. It was dulled in some spots from Mark playing with it, spinning it around on the finger that wore it as he lay in bed late at night. Its owner would just smile softly at him, letting Mark have his way.  
  
There was one night, right after they moved into the loft with a philosophy professor they had met in the park, Mark had stayed up all night just playing with that ring. Everything had been silent and beautiful, even though they just had a dirty room with an old mattress on the ground. Mark can still picture the moonlight filtering in through the window, casting a strange blue glow over the entire room. Benny was supposedly reading over Mark’s latest screenplay, but he didn’t turn a single page all night. He stared at the first page, occasionally glancing down at where Mark lay in his arms. Mark had just sat contently all night, playing with the ring and watching the different ways it would catch the moonlight.  
  
“Hey, Mark? You in there?”  
  
Mark flinched as knuckles rapped his head, a little harder than necessary. He looked up at the grinning face looking down at him, his own dull eyes meeting dark brown one’s sparkling with mirth. He faked a soft lopsided grin before looking down to the ground. Benny would have been concerned by his reaction, begging him to tell him what was wrong. This man though, this Benjamin Coffin III just brushed it off as one of the filmmaker’s moods.  
  
This change used to give Mark a clenching feeling in his gut, the pain taking an almost physical manifestation. He used to be able to talk about these kinds of things with Collins, before he went to work at M.I.T. He used to be able to sit with Roger and just listen to his music, before four little letters changed their lives.  
  
That was probably when everything had started to change. Mark wondered what it said about their relationship that it only took a Post-It and four little letters to ruin everything.  
  
Mark had come home from another day at a job he hated, serving coffee to rushing businesspeople and half-awake students. He wished he could say the loft had an ominous feeling, like it always did in the movies before something happened. But, everything had seemed completely normal. It had the hazy blue hue caused by the setting sun, disrupted only by the bright yellow light filtering out from under the bathroom door. He could hear the soft trickling of water, meaning it had to be April because she was the only one who ever took a bath.  
  
Knocking cautiously on the door, remembering that the last time he had barged in he had received a bar of soap to the head, Mark slowly pushed on the bathroom door. He noticed the pink water on the ground first, slowing following the ripples back to their source in the bathtub. Everything was a blur after that. Collins had come home and taken charge, making sure everything was taken care of like usual. Mark had sat on the couch for the most part, ready to intercept Roger when he came through the door.   
  
He hadn’t done a very good job when the rocker finally made his way in, for once completely sober after a gig. Roger had immediately made his way across the loft, Mark pulling gently but desperately on his arm. It had take all of Mark’s strength to pull the musician away from the bathroom, the silence finally broken in the loft as Roger’s angry yells and Mark’s desperate pleading began to echo off the old wooden walls. They were soon joined by Collins’, who grabbed onto Roger and pulled him to the other side of the room. Roger had continued shouting, squirming out of the anarchist’s grip and back over to Mark.  
  
Mark couldn’t for the life of him remember what Roger had been shouting, but he knew it had been something along the lines of how he could let this happen and what was wrong with him. The next thing he knew, Roger had a tight grip on his shoulders and then he was suddenly falling.  
  
When he was finally able to right his glasses on his face, he could see Roger on the ground beside him nursing the back of his head. Benny stood above him, his fist trembling as he stared down on the rocker. Benny’s eyes had been wide with a fear Mark had never seen in them before.  
  
Everything had gone to hell after that night. Collins had gone away to teach at M.I.T., Roger had gone into withdrawal, and Benny had gone…somewhere. Mark would go days without any human contact, keeping Roger locked in his room for the most part. He would usually sit quietly where Roger was sitting now, watching other people’s go on around him. He’d watch as the nice elderly gentleman who lived across the street walk back and forth from the pharmacy each day, until the day came when he didn’t come out anymore. He’d watch young kids from uptown buy smack for the first time, using their parents’ hard-earned money. He’d watch the young girl downstairs run down the street in her fishnet stockings and long jacket. He’d watch frightened tourists trying to find their way back to the visitor friendly parts of town, eventually being guided by the young drummer who could often be seen below.  
  
And now he was watching his best friend being replaced by the very creature they had once mocked together, and that hurt him far more than he was willing to admit. So, Mark does what he does best.  
  
He detaches.  
  
He detaches as Benjamin Coffin III straightens his tie and checks himself a final time in the mirror.  
  
He detaches as Benjamin Coffin III moves by with a gentle pat on the shoulder instead of the kiss to the forehead Benny would have given.  
  
He detaches as Benjamin Coffin III walks by Roger without any acknowledgement.  
  
He detaches as Benjamin Coffin III leaves the loft for a night on the town with the landlord’s daughter.  
  
He detaches as he turns to see a cheap ring sitting on the edge of the sink.  
  
He tries to tell himself that it doesn’t really hurt to see the light glinting off an unimportant piece of metal, but he never was a very good liar.


End file.
